Self Development starts with Self Awareness

Meditation Is Not What You Think

I keep myself busy on the long commute to the office with audiobooks, videos or movies. I was listening to one of the lectures on meditation from Dr Deepak Chopra (a doctor, philosopher and a scientific spiritual master). My Aha moment came when he said Meditation is not WHAT YOU THINK. Most of us have been thinking of meditation as an exercise of concentrating on one thing, which can be an object, symbol, breath or mantra. Hence meditation becoming thinking only one thought and reducing the chatter from other thoughts. It is true but not the complete truth. Dr Chopra’s statement made it very clear to me and I can’t stop myself sharing this wisdom here.

Since most of us would not have experienced the ultimate goal of meditation, as it takes lot of practice to achieve that self-control. Meditation has 2 phases. First one is CONTROLLING YOUR MIND and the second one is LETTING GO OF THE CONTROL. There is an effortless transition between theses phases while practising meditation.

CONTROLLING YOUR MIND

As we sit to meditate with the chatter of thoughts in our mind, it is always advisable to relax the physical body before we dive into the mind. The purpose of meditating on the breath, symbol, mantra or object is to bring the wondering mind to the present moment and connect with the self. This is how most of us understand meditation. But there is something beyond this that is letting go of this control as well.

LETING GO OF THE CONTROL

Once we reach a level where our running thoughts have subsided and we have reached a deeper level of mind with only the point of meditation (mantra, symbol, object, breath) being only active and connected to. The mind opens the access to the other side of the tunnel where you reach the state of THOUGHTLESSNESS. Many people experience it as if they are asleep, or weightless or levitated or a state of joy and light. This is the state when you lose that control as well and become what you truly are i.e Light / Energy / Universe / Higher consciousness (param-aatma, holy ghost, rooh).

Meditation connects you to your self-realized version, when your existence is beyond your mind and body. So you are no more WHAT YOU THINK, but are pure NOTHINGNESS.

Ultimately the meditation is WHEN YOU DON’T THINK. It is a state of mind or Trans that we touch many times in a day. Meditation is the other form of self-hypnosis where you open the doors to your subconscious mind.

PS: you may like to see the famous video “Spiritual Reality” on youtube. This video is available in hindi only.